Plums pickup, Johan's ID card and upcoming events

Last Thursday was the last day of our short recovery stay in BP, then on Friday we left for Bér. The only thing happening on Thursday was a return of the discussion group with Márkó and Levi, but it was a bit disjointed because none of us was particularly well prepared. Finally, we agreed that we are going to read the next three sections in Alan's Bolshevism book, as well as discuss the podcast about why we don't criticise Putin. No date yet, because Márkó is supposed to come up with dates, as he is the one that works odd shifts and we have to fit in with him.

My pink  beauties in the courtyard

Our trip down to Bér was pretty eventless, we left fairly early, went and shopped for food in Tesco and arrived home just after 11 am. The rest of the week was dominated by two main activities:  1. helping our good friend Johan, who is still in a great deal of need for assistance and we are trying to help him; 2. picking up fallen plums for the pálinka mash. Both are extremely exhausting, Johan's affairs mostly because fighting the insane Hungarian bureaucracy is not one of my favourite activities and picking fallen fruit is absolutely killing my back. 

Just a few fallen plums under one of the trees

On the day of our arrival we picked over 50 kilos of the stuff, mostly the large yellow plums, but there were some traditional blue ones as well. I don't think the harvest will be as prolific as last year's, but it is still good for somewhere between 2 and 3 barrels, the rest will have to be bought in from our usual orchard in Galgaguta.  Since then we realised that in spite of the drought, the miniature plums that we inherited from the previous owner have also plumped up and were worth picking up. Not in every year do we bother with them, only when they look to have some juice in them. Unfortunately, the beautiful, large and very tasty Beszterce plums have all dried still on the tree. They are hardly dropping, but even when they do it is not worth picking them. 

The beautiful rose in the courtyard

Johan has also offered that we can pick plums from his garden, so on Saturday I went over and picked a good bucketful of his fruit. Afterwards I dead headed my roses in the courtyard and one of the deep reds looked every so pretty. On top of all this activity, I am also trying to sort an event that we have decided to take part in at the last minute. My hashing group regularly organises an  away hash and gathering in and around Balatonalmádi, based by Incredible Hulk (aka David) and Paprika Smiley, both of whom have houses in the town. We have not yet taken part, but I haven't seen David for a while, and also still have some caches in the area to get, so we decided to go.

Our terrace in the Red Cat B&B

We were very lucky with our usual B&B, because in spite of being on holiday that week, he offered that he will arrange it with his staff to let us in. I have forgotten to ask how to pay him, but I can always ring him later about that. The Hash run starts in Balatonfűzfő and ends at Paprika Smiley's house in the centre of Almádi. There will be two beer stops and one for pálinka. Even ice cream might be possible, so unless the weather is too hot, I might join them and Roy can hang around in a pub or restaurant or even in PS's house at the same time. If the weather is too far above 30 deg C, I will join Roy, as I am incapable to cope with heat of that magnitude.

The approximate route of the Hash on 1st August

We will go down on the Friday, try to find and log a few geocaches en route, then go to the B&B and end up with meeting Hulk, Haggis and Paprika Smiley. Other paperwork and computer work included the incredible frustration of dealing with the National Directorate for Alien Policing in Balassagyarmat. Johan bought a long house in the village and I have helped him so far with the Electricity, Gas and Water Authorities to transfer the ownership and therefore the responsibility for paying the bills for those services. However, this fancy sounding "Authority" is another type of animal. I have to admit that they have improved a great deal from the old days, the place is now full of university graduates, quite polite and civilised staff, while the common and garden variety of copper, especially in the countryside, is still a nice bloke.

The Balassagyarmat OIF building 

The downside, however, is that most of them are still very much of the old Prussian culture of being a "job's worth", following the book to the last stupid letter.  Johan wanted to apply for an ID card, which is for EU citizens in other EU countries. All those years ago when Roy had one, the application was about 10 minutes and one short form. Now it is dreadfully complicated and occasionally impossible. We both tried to register to get an appointment in Balassagyarmat, but couldn't. The compulsory verification e-mail with the security code would not arrive. Neither on Johann's e-mail, nor on mine. We went anyway, hoping that there will be an empty half hour somewhere in the schedule, so that we could be taken. Met with a really nice, polite, knowledgeable and helpful young woman, who told me all the nitty gritty of what Johan would need to apply, but let us know that appointments can only be applied for on line in the central system. I explained that it would not send us the code, so we couldn't apply, and that there is no point turning up, because they are usually fully booked and cannot do anything about that.

The booking system that does not work

On returning home, I tried to find any other telephone numbers and finally arrived at one called Call Centre. I tried that and talked with a lovely young man this time, who was also very polite and helpful. He assured me that it wasn't me who  was doing anything wrong, it is a glitch in the system, which has been around for months and unfortunately, they still have not worked out what is the cause of it. So poor old Johan is stuck. I know there are bureaucracies in the world which are just as insane as the one in Hungary, but I cannot imagine that any other country would have a service centre that would insist that you have to book an appointment on line and then have a system that is faulty and they can't repair. Or if they have one like that, they would not be flexible enough to make an exception for those that fall victim to the glitch in THEIR system. 

A bowlful of nice traditional blue plums

The plum picking is going on and so is the watering of the trees. This is the first time since we lived here that we have to water them. I am dreading the water bill, but what can we do? As soon as I saw the completely dried up beautiful Beszterce plums I knew that we need to water them until at least all the plums have dropped. My two little three year old Japanese Flowering Cherry and the Bronze Maple trees are getting some water too. They really need it, because their root system is still young and especially the Maple is struggling in the drought. 

Johan enjoying his chicken and chips

The one good thing about our disastrous Monday was that at the end of it we went to the Stone Bridge restaurant in Héhalom for lunch, which was much enjoyed by all three of us. This time it was Roy's treat, and Johan did say that he will have to go there again. As it happens, he is taking us there again for lunch tomorrow, to say good  bye before we leave for the Balaton and before he leaves on Sunday. It is his treat this time, but the venue is the same.

Laci's successful booking on the screen

And after all this I had a stubborn attempt at doing something about poor Johan's problem. The woman at the office in Balassagyarmat told me both in person on Monday and on the phone later, that I should get a friend to try to book a slot for Wednesday. At the time I was too angry to register it, but later I thought I might try it. I rang Heni, but she was too busy, so I tried Laci Nemesházi and he was willing. And then the website collapsed. I thought there is a curse on this whole thing, but I still kept trying and once it was back I quickly rang Laci and he managed it. Good job that he had the quickness of mind to take a screenshot of the successful booking of the appointment, because the actually promised confirmation e-mail had never arrived.

Laci's e-mail about no confirmation e-mail

So this morning we got going again. The appointment was for 8:30 am and we were there by 8:15. Not a soul anywhere, but eventually the women in the office turned up and we handed over all the papers. She took them and about 20 minutes later turned up again saying that we have not brought 3 months of Johan's bank statement printed out. I was very close to screaming at her, but realising that that would not facilitate a friendly solution I asked why she didn't tell me on Monday? She kept changing the subject, like any true bureaucrat would do when he/she knows that it was their fault. Anyway, the little copper in the corner was very sweet and helpful and described the route to a print and stationary shop where Johan could send the required pages attached to an e-mail and she would print them for 100 forints a page.

The lovely printing shop in Balassagyarmat

We left and found the place closed. It wasn't quite 9 am yet, so we were hoping that she was just a bit late. And she did turn up about 5 minutes later. She was really lovely, helped us, we sorted the e-mail and in 10 minutes we were in the possession of all those pages on paper. On our return to the office, the woman who was dealing with Johan's papers kept coming up with new things he had to write down and or declare and or fill out. What was supposed to be about a half hour appointment, turned out to be 2 and half hours. Finally, it was done, Johan had his registration card and a promise of his address card arriving in 2-3 weeks by post.

Johan with pork, mushrooms and chips

My God, how I needed to be out of there after this. Johan had a headache, I was totally zombified and couldn't even sleep in the car en route home. We got home for midday, then, after a short rest, went back to the Stone Bridge for lunch at Johan's invitation and had fillet of pork with mushroom sauce and potatoes. A  cucumber salad and a cabbage salad made it perfect. I couldn't eat all of mine, so about a third of it came home with me for tomorrow's lunch. 

"Fabogár" where Johan couldn't buy his presents

Johan wanted to go over to Pásztó to the wooden memorabilia shop to buy some presents, but unfortunately it was closed. Once there, we tried to think of some other jobs, like builders' merchants, but while we found one open, they didn't have what he needed. Once he owned up needing stuff for a lime wash and some iron grills to put into cement, Roy mentioned that he had some from a couple of years ago and was gladly parting with it to help him. So, this is a very short version of this extremely busy week, which, of course, hasn't finished yet. We are off to BP tomorrow and to the Balaton on Friday for a party and some caching. Post can be expected from me next Wednesday, provided I am still on this planet and am compos mentis. 

 

Johan's paperwork in Pásztó and lunch with him in the Éden, the birthday caching trip to the East and South, and the "Teddy Bear Museum".

So much happened in the last 7 days that I have to warn you, this is going to be a long post. As promised, Johan, our Dutch friend and neighbour in Bér, on Wednesday last, we have journeyed to Pásztó to sort out his admin relating to his services: water, electricity and gas. As I asked him last year, when he was in Bér last to bring them, he brought lots of documents with him, so we had his purchasing contract and deeds to his house and lots of bits of bills from the past relating to the services. I looked up the location of the offices we had to go to and found that gas and electricity are now together in the Pásztó Post Office. I suppose this should make sense, as they are both owned by MVM and billed by the same system.

Pásztó Post Office

We parked up not too far from the Post Office and found the counter,  behind which sat a lovely lady. She took all our papers and filled out all the forms for us, which we would have had to do ourselves, should we have gone for doing it online. The whole thing took an hour and a quarter, but it was done and she was so nice with it. I am still always in favour of doing things in person, which might take more effort to travel and queue etc., but you cannot beat the personal touch. Mind you, it could have been someone unhelpful and officious, but I am glad to confirm that ladies in Pásztó offices are still the best in the world: kind, smiley, helpful, patient and a joy to work with.

The form Johan will have to fill in

We also went to the Council to enquire about acquiring an address card and an ID card for Johan. The lady there confirmed, what I have already suspected, that Johan will first have to go to the Immigration office in Balassagyarmat to get registered, and then the address card could be issued by the Council. The ID card also, though that is yet another process, but Johan, quite rightly said, that he is not bothered with those yet. I did tell him, that if he wants to open a bank account, he will need an address card, but he is not bothering with that either at this stage. Finally, we went to sort the water supply and we didn't know that they have moved. Thankfully, we only went about 300 yards further up on the Main Street, so we sorted that quickly as well.

John in the Eden

On our way back to Bér, Johan invited Roy and myself to lunch the following day, and we gladly accepted. He was really grateful for my help, and I assured him that I am an expert at this game, having helped a large number of Dutch neighbours along the way. He came for us in his Mercedes promptly the following day and we went to the Eden along Route 21 for lunch. Gyula, the owner, was there and greeted us with joy. He even offered us coffees on the house after our lunch. Johan has really enjoyed his lunch and we all got home together with a full tummy.

The courtyard with roses

On Friday we did a few gardening jobs prior to our departure on Saturday: watering the trees, pruning the roses in the courtyard, picking up some plums for the mash and cutting back the vines over the patio. I also filled the medicine boxes and then started packing for an early departure. We promised Johan that we would be back on Tuesday and parted on very good terms. The packing was done very quickly, and with the exception of those things that have to be packed the last minute, all was ready for an early Saturday start.

An ancient and beautiful oak tree with its own cache

Our first day on the trip started towards the East, with a few finds still reasonably close to the village and then onto the motorway to get down in the direction of the Tisza-lake.  I have found most caches in that area, but this time we had some new ones to find, which have been put out since our last visit. There is a campaign to find the largest, or oldest or tallest old tree in each county. I have already found 9 of them and the target this time was for finding another 6. Obviously, there were others en route, which were also planned to be found.

A cute little chapel in the middle of the puszta

The first day went off without too many disasters. The only whinge I can offer is about the weather. The promised cold front has failed to materialise, and we had mid-thirties by the afternoon, which even with the air conditioning in the car was not easy to put up with. Still, we proceeded on our way, heading towards Debrecen, where we were planning to stay two nights in an apartment in the centre of the city. Unfortunately, I have not realised that the centre of Debrecen has been made traffic-free and parking was very difficult to find in walking distance of the apartment. Thankfully, the parking during the weekend was easier to find than it would have been during the week and was free from 2 pm on Saturday.

The Great Church in Debrecen

The walk with all our gear took us more than half an hour, in spite of the fact that it was only about 600 yards. Still, it mostly lead along the main drag, with the glorious Big Church at the end of it and along it there were many pubs and restaurants. As it was traffic-free, the terraces reached into the road and a lovely buzz gave the city a pleasant atmosphere. It was also the promenade, so it was full of benches, where we could sit for a rest now and again. 

A gorgeous old Atlantic pine tree

The apartment was on the third floor, but thankfully there was a lift in the building. On arrival we spotted that there was a mobile air condition unit in the flat, so we put it on straight away. Unfortunately, there was no structure to put the exhaust pipe through the wall in, so we had to have the window open all the time. This, needless to say, lessened the otherwise quite effective AC unit's cooling of the apartment, but on the whole it was bearable to sleep in. The flat was a conversion from a large room into a tiny flat, with miniature kitchen and bathroom, but the bed was comfortable and Roy could watch the World Cup on the large flat screen TV. On balance, we thought that the apartment was reasonable value for money. We paid only 49.000 forints (£120), plus a few hundred in tourist tax for two nights. However, the flooding shower, which the owner promised to pop in and fix, was not fixed, so I don't think we'll stay there again.

A view through to the puszta

While Debrecen is a magnificent city, with lots of history, fancy architecture and lovely, laid back people, plus the centre has a delightful buzz and good atmosphere, we did have a shock on Sunday evening. Most restaurants do not open on Sunday and those that do close by 6 pm. We picked a lovely looking restaurant on the previous day to have dinner in on Sunday, but it has just closed as we got there. We were, unfortunately, left with only one place, which was still open, and that had very substandard service and food. To finish this on a high note, though, on Saturday we did find a Guri bar, which is part of a chain that Roy uses in BP and had a couple of pints of Stahanov beer, our favourite.

The only look-out tower this time

The days of caching around Debrecen were great, we did find quite a few, although we suffered in the late afternoon heat a lot. The list of large trees  was getting longer and thankfully none of the caches needed too much walking to in the heat. They were either drive in, including some in the middle of the forest or the puszta, as in the drought all the dirt lanes were driveable. I did have some longer walks, but those were done either first thing in the morning or in the forests, which were much cooler all day. We fulfilled our quota and happily moved on towards Gyula, our final destination on the third day.

A really ancient oak tree from the bottom up

That day included some travelling around in Romania, which in spite the deep seated prejudice of Hungarians about the condition of their roads, was most comfortably travelled. I think they have spent some money since we last travelled there on their roads, obviously mostly financed by the EU, but wherever it came from, it was most welcome. The only downside of the caches on the other side of the border was that some of the caches were very neglected by their owners, either in bad condition, missing or the locations were closed up and impossible to access. Still, we had help and we did find a few.

A nice little manor house in a village

Our arrival in Gyula was reasonably early, although we have had a very long day, or it seemed like it in the heat. This accommodation, and all things relating to the town of Gyula, had finally given us a few excellent impressions and experiences, so Roy announced that all he had seen, used, eaten and communicated with had cheered him up and saved his little holiday. I agreed with him, as in comparison with Debrecen, almost everything was superior to our previous time. The apartment looked brand new, clean, modern and extremely well air conditioned. The fridge was enormous and looking clean and large, and all in all the service was better too. We had to go to their hotel for the keys and the little woman on reception was very friendly and helpful. Breakfast the following morning looked like a 5-star hotel breakfast, with choices so many I didn't know where to start. The town itself  was pristine, well kept and even the caches were great.

Me looking happy in the Gyula apartment

And then, on the last day we had a leisurely pootle back home, although we did decide to rest up in BP for a few days before returning to Bér. I wrote to Johan, apologising for not seeing him before he departs for home, but it is not impossible that he will still be there when we get back on Friday, as he had car troubles and now, having stubbed his big toe on his dining table, might have to put off his departure while nursing his aching toe. Either way, we will be OK, it will be nice to see him again before he goes home, although if his toe has improved sufficiently to drive, then we wish him a good journey home after his month away from his wife.

By the water in Gyula in a lovely restaurant

The last day's caching took us to an interesting place in Rákóczifalva, a village South of Szolnok, and where the so called "Teddy bear museum" can be found. This is the life's work of a delightful man, who is a maniac of collecting anything that preserves the past, be it teddy bears, furniture, memorial plaques, weapons, kitchen boxes, photos, pictures, statues, ancient remains of destroyed buildings etc., etc. I couldn't list all of it here without taking weeks. He led me round, told me the story of many things and I did see lots of teddy bears, but in spite of its name, the museum was about a lot more than bears. Unfortunately, Roy didn't want to come in, but I am sure, that when I next go past the place, I will drag him in. It was full of old things that Roy loves and he would have been enjoying to see, had he come in with me. I logged the geocache to go with the museum, of course, but honestly, I have forgotten about that as soon as my guide started his tour round his thousands of exhibits.

A few teddy bears in the museum

We took the M4 back to BP and were at home in no time at all. We are having a couple of days of recuperation and then get back to Bér on Friday. While in the car en route home I did a certain amount of paperwork, so as to use the time and save me facing the dreaded admin in town. I got rid of hundreds of superfluous e-mails, did some caching admin and spent some time on the phone discussing further caching trips coming up. Unfortunately, Csilla had to cancel our Pilis hikes, so I contacted my new geocaching friend, István, just in case he fancied doing the hikes with me. Amazingly, he said yes, so I am now planning those two hikes with him.

István Mák, my new geocaching friend

The weather is slightly cooler today, but for once we will not be going out, there is so much indoors work to be done before we return to the country. So, with this note I will return to my office work and hope to come back with some more news this time next Wednesday. 💖 

 

 

Geocaching event in Esztergom, World Cup and F1, our celebrations for my 78th birthday and meeting up with Johan

Last week was mostly spent still in Budapest, and our days alternated between spending it mostly indoors in the nice cool environment created by the air conditioner and going out in the heat for interesting outings. The first outing happened on Saturday, when we went to Esztergom, a really lovely old town about an hour by train, North of Budapest. This was a train safari - a la Adrian - and we had a good time.

The .com event's banner

The international geocaching club - geocaching.com - held a gathering there and as this was the third time they held it, I thought it was about time I went. With both of us going, it turned out to be a really nice outing. We caught the 8:21am train from Nyugati railway station and were at the event, after some bus catching adventures at the Esztergom railway station, by bang on 10:00 am. The atmosphere was very friendly and I managed to find out where the Hungarian geocache was, as a result. I logged it, had some more chats with both people I knew and with some new ones. 

 

Geocachers from all over the world at the event

As the weather started hotting up, we went and sat about on a bench in front of the Basilica in the shade and took some photos. Then we walked all the way round the Basilica, taking lots of lovely photos everywhere. Esztergom is really photogenic, but I never knew that they had lots of birdies too. I remembered to put the Merlin Bird ID app on, and would you believe it, I had a new bird, a Bank Swallow, to add to my life list. I have now 168 recorded birds in my life list on the app. 

Bank Swallow

Later, we also discovered some parts of the town we didn’t know, even though we had been to Esztergom before. After some more walking about, we returned to the event centre, to look around again, see if we can find some more people to talk to, but it seemed that everybody was either sight seeing or caching all over town. We said good bye and left, walking downhill towards the river, in the hope that we’ll find a place to eat at. While still in the vicinity of the Basilica, all places were full, but when we found a dead, cut-off bit of the Danube, we hit the jackpot. 

Esztergom Basilica on the hill

It was beautiful, cool, with dozens of 200-300 year old plane trees by the town swimming pool. Not that we wanted to go for a swim there, but we found that their buffet had an entrance from the avenue of plane trees too, so we went in and had a lovely lunch under some more ancient and enormous trees. Roy had chicken in breadcrumbs with chips and a salad, and I had some feta cheese, with chips and a salad. We both had some beer with it and finished it all off. Then we needed to find a not too exhausting way back to the railway station and this time Google did us proud and led us on a fast and cool way to a bus stop, where we only waited about 10 minutes, a bus came, we got on and then when it did get to the railway station, the BP train was in and due to leave in 5 minutes. 

Roy supporting one of the ancient plane trees

Roy had a good sleep on the train again, and we were indoors by a few minutes after 3 pm. Air conditioning went on straight away and Roy had a third sleep for about another hour, while I started doing admin, re: birds, geocaches and FB albums. A very successful day, much enjoyed, with one new bird and one new cache and we found bits of Esztergom we have never seen before. And even the weather was reasonable with a slight breeze taking the edge of the heatwave off.

Roy having his lunch in Esztergom

Sunday was spent with some domestic chores, like washing and filling our medicine boxes for the next week. The Football World Cup was still on and while there were no more matches with England in them, some other high quality games were much enjoyed on the TV. We also watched some F1, which is beginning to interest me again, but I very much doubt that the old enthusiasm will ever return. Still, it was nice to see Hamilton doing reasonably well this year at Ferrari.

Roy napping on the train

Then came Monday, 13th of July, which had two main events in it: 1. a scheduled 5-hour power cut in our apartment block; 2. my 78th birthday. The interaction between the two was quite fortunate, even though I wouldn't have thought so originally. We live in a flat that is in the darkest corner of a block of flats on the ground floor. Basically, we can never do anything in the flat without artificial lighting, it is that dark. So, what were we to do in a dark place with no lights, no TV and no internet? The only connection to the electronic world was my smart phone, and that was wholly inadequate.

Champagne and fruit - my birthday breakfast

So, we got up quite early, treated each other to a champagne breakfast, containing half a bottle of champagne and a large amount of fresh fruit: apple, melon, peach, raspberries, grapes and blueberries. Afterwards, I had a couple of pieces of toast with 2 fried eggs and a bit of bacon, while Roy had a toasted bacon sandwich. As the switch off time was fast approaching, we had to decide what to do for the rest of the morning, while the flat was in the dark.

Roy with chammpagne

We decided to go out, but where? you may ask. I had no idea until the last minute, when I had some inspiration from somewhere. I suggested to Roy that we should go to the Buda Hills for a little outing, while I will have the Merlin app on, just in case we can find a new species of bird to record. He agreed, and off we went a few minutes after 8 am, when  the electricity disappeared. 

The cog-wheel railway at the terminus

We took the trolley bus to the Körút and the no. 6 tram over the river and ended up using the cog-wheel railway up to Széchenyi hill. It was amazing to feel that with every meter travelling uphill in the forest, the temperature was plummeting. From the u[[er terminus  we walked over to the Children’s Railway, but that was not coming for another 40 minutes, so the final choice was for going on a short hike of about 2.5 km, all the way down to the Farkasréti Cemetery. 

The old TV tower on Széchenyi  hill

The hike was really exciting. I got a bit worried about Roy towards the bottom, as the path got narrower and narrower, then got very uneven, slippery and steep. Still, we were very brave, hung onto as many trees as we could and made it down in one piece. Where we actually ended up on streets with houses around, we saw a bus stop, which was the terminus of the bus no. 53. We found out that it went down to the Metro and it came every 10 minutes. We were very lucky, as Roy’s legs were seriously complaining by then. 

Roy on the hike

Once on the Metro 4, we went all the way to the Keleti Station and from there with a trolley bus 76 to one of our favourite little restaurants. Had a lovely lunch and by the time we got home around 1:30 pm, the lights were on again and we could rest in peace. Roy had a fairly long nap and I have looked at the endless number of birthday greetings on FB and Messenger. It took practically the rest of the day to read and answer all of them. Still, I was really happy, as so many people thought of me on my birthday, that it looked like the numbers would outdo all previous years. At the end I counted them up and they numbered  just over 60, which is great.

End of the tarmac road on our hike

 And then yesterday we packed up all our gear and came down to the village, as we needed to prepare my bike there for the trip to start on Saturday. We managed to buy the bike rack, but forgot about the adapter for 7-pin to 13-pin electrics between the car and the rack. Roy managed to buy one, but we didn't know if it would work. That we had to wait for until we got home. In the meantime, we had two chores, one was to ring the post lady and let her know that the parcel waiting for us could now be delivered, the other was our Dutch neighbour, Johan, who was back after nearly year and whom I promised to help with Hungarian bureaucracy.

In the depth of the forest on our hike

After a fairly uneventful drive, including a food shop at Lidl, we arrived around 11:15 am and Johan, was on the phone almost immediately. He invited us to coffee and we agreed that we would be there around 4 pm in the afternoon. In the meantime I managed to sort out the circumstances around Stephen's visit in August, which basically will only be for 2 days, not 4. He arrives with Ruth on Sunday evening and leaves first thing on Wednesday. If you add that up, that is only 2 days, isn't it? Never mind, at least I now know the dates and times, and as we would very much like to see them, I later suggested via Messenger that we could go out in the afternoon of Tuesday, 25th August to Callas, a really posh cafe right next to the Hungarian National Opera House, for tea and cakes.

Roy and ice cream in the Regős

The visit to John in the afternoon took something like 3 and half hours, which made me rather tired and hot, as he has no air conditioning in the house, although a very powerful fan was on, which made it a tad more pleasant. Still, he has so many problems with that house of his, that it will take more like 3 and half years, than 3 and half hours to sort them. I offered to go with him to sort out several official jobs, like changing the electricity meter, gas meter, water meter, his ID and address card in the nearby town of Pásztó the following day, and he looked rather glad. It had to be this Wednesday, because most of those official places are only open twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, and after this Wednesday it could only be done next week, when on Monday we are not back from our trip yet, and by Wednesday he has most likely have departed back to the Netherlands. So, we are leaving at 7:30 am this morning and wish me luck!

Callas cafe interior

 Hopefully, we'll get back from our 4-day jaunt to the East and South East of the country by Tuesday, and that I will be not too knackered to write the next post on Wednesday, a week today. 

Caching in the Buda Hills and in the Visegrád Mountains, World Cup and Tour de France and Pip and Martin from Yorkshire

Last Wednesday we had a lovely outing to the Buda hills in town. The list of caches you have found is broken down into 20 sections: the 19 counties and the capital. Many cachers have been to all the caches in their own county, so the percentage in that area is 100% for them. I have not had one like that for a long time, until one day I found that I had all the Budapest caches, so I finally got one area with 100. Until, that is, somebody put a new one out and I went down to 99%. So we had to go and get that new one to get back to 100%.

They had shelter and kept ammunition here

We got up very early, as the heat wave was still with us, but it was still quite nice and cool when we started. The theme of this cache was about the "Defence line in the Buda hills", which is basically all the remnants of WW2, like trenches, underground ammunition dumps and the bases for anti-aircraft guns. It was actually quite an interesting hike, especially the ones I never knew were there. Roy helped me by delivering me by car to the start and then driving to the finish to pick me up again. I am very lucky having him, as most other people had to walk to the nearest transport or back to their own car at the start.

The state of my finds as of today

This outing was also necessary for filling in my empty days on the table that shows how many days of the year I haven't yet geocached. Somebody thought up this silly table, where the months go down on the left and the days are in the top line. Each little square shows how many caches have you found on that particular day, ever since you started caching. So, the collection of 100% coverage is the aim in every month, and I am happy to report that I have 3 now. So, until I have got at least one cache in every little square in this table, I will have to go caching on all outstanding days with a bit fat zero in. Fun, isn't it?

Stephen Grant

Thursday was Stephen's birthday, he is now 53, but I'm happy to say he does not look it. He is still a bit of a workaholic, which as he gets older will be very difficult to maintain. Still, it is his life, so while I quietly worry about him at times, I have no word in the matter whatsoever. I sent the money by BACS for presents for both him and Elian, and am currently awaiting his report of what they got with it. I suppose I'll have to wait for a while, as he is on a P&O cruise to the Norwegian fjords with Ruth, his latest and really lovely girlfriend. Not that it is a holiday, he is contracted to perform on stage as the resident comic every night. Still, he is never happy unless he is earning money, even on holiday.

Jordan Pickford the goalie

The next 5 days in BP had not too many exciting happenings to write about. I was hiding from the heat mostly, Roy occasionally went out shopping and/or to the pub, so it was routine. I still had lots of paperwork, namely making sure that we had enough money in the bank, as booking.com was drawing the cost of the Debrecen accommodation on the 2nd July for our next caching trip East. I also had to finish the cache list for that trip, as well as prepare for yesterday little jaunt. We also made attempts at watching the World Cup, and while we are not particularly enthusiastic about football, this time it was worth watching some of the matches. England versus Mexico was a real sensation. Even I was celebrating, which does not happen too often.

Tadej Pogačar

 

Talking of football: I am really cheesed off about 3 major sports events being held at exactly the same time. The World Cup, the Tour de France and Wimbledon. Even though we were trying to stay cool indoors lately, we still didn't have enough time to watch all of them. In my case, Wimbledon went for a Burton, but I am watching the odd match and followed Day 4 of the Tour the France yesterday. Amazing guys those cyclists. And I had some more information about Tadej Pogačar, whom I have heard of, but never appreciated how good he is. 

Áprily-valley with the cache nearby

Two more interesting, albeit rather annoying things have also happen last week. The first one was the announcement of the city council about car parking. They have overnight abolished using coins for parking and the parking meters. In fact, they are removing the parking meters and you can only pay by smart phone. What on earth will those people do who have no smart phones, like Roy? Budapest GO is a fantastic bit of software, as I wrote last week, but guess what? Yes, the parking bit of that software is not due to come out for God knows how long. Brrrrr!!!!

The steepness of the valley side

The other thing was an announcement by Yahoo that my e-mail account's storage is full and I will either have to clear some space or pay for the new version with the facility of storage extension. Considering that Yahoo is an ancient system and I have been thinking of abandoning it for gmail, I had to inclination to pay, so I started the process of deleting 46,000 e-mails. You can imagine that it would not do it in one  go, so I spent several days with boring deletions, which was not fun. I am happy to report that while it wasn't all 46,000 of them, but I deleted enough to stop the aggressive pop-ups appearing on my screen.

No vehicles, please!!!

And then, yesterday Roy and I went caching again, (to fill another one of those little boxes with zero in it), North of BP on the other side of the river. One had a km walk each way, up a really beautiful little valley in the Visegrád Mountains, the other one was a mile walk in each direction, along a desert in both appearance and heat, to the remnants of a Roman fort along the Danube. Both were fun, although the desert walk was starting to get to me towards the end. I am nursing sore muscles this morning, but I am glad that I did those two. They have been screaming at me on the map for years, so now they are done.

Pretty flower en route to the Roman fort

One other fun thing was Roy turning up with two complete strangers from the pub one day. They were a hilarious couple, Pip and Martin, from Ripley in Yorkshire. We had a jolly good chinwag, until they quickly departed around 7 pm, as they wanted to have dinner and a nap, before waking up at 2 am to watch the England/Mexico match in their hotel room.

The big skies en route to the Roman fort

I think this is it for last week. We are in town until next Monday, which happens to be my birthday. We would have left earlier, but we got a notice of a scheduled power cut on that day, and we like to be around when the power comes back on, just to check if everything is OK in the flat. We plan to leave next Tuesday, so next Wednesday we should be back in the village, preparing for our 4-day trip to the East.